


An evening on Lah'mu

by Jester85



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Gen, Possible Spoilers for Rogue One, though nothing you can't get from the trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8831485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jester85/pseuds/Jester85
Summary: Just a write-up based on what the trailers have shown so far of Jyn's childhood and what happens to her father.  The "fill in the gaps" details are mine, and probably won't be 100% accurate when we actually see the movie, but oh well, I just wrote this for fun.





	

 

The last lights of Sol's rays tinged the sea as the red-orange orb slipped beneath the gently rolling waves.

It was a sight the man on the hill had taken in many times.  The unchanging certainty of the sight, the gradual inexorability of watching the pink-hued horizon give way to a void of inky black, was in its own way, as comforting and repetitious as the obedience of technology.

Except that tonight, there was a shooting star streaking across the fading light, and then it was no shooting star at all, because sun caught a glint of silver and the star was slowing and coming about, and inevitability sank into Galen Erso's heart like a stone.

The small shuttle glided smoothly down like a carrion bird, only offset by the blinking lights at each wingtip. There was no landing strip, no spaceport, on Lah'mu, but nothing to obstruct its gentle landing either, only muddy fields broken up by rows of crops for the winter harvest, lined up neatly and fed by the irrigation techniques he had shown the indigenous humanoids, nothing terribly sophisticated but quietly revolutionizing a people who had no word for "wheel". It was a simple, unpretentious life, not ambitious but pure, innocent. The kind he had realized too late was what he really wanted.

 _"I think I've found the perfect place,"_  Saw had said _, "Remote.  A bit desolate, but tranquil."_

A world where you lived for one of two reasons; you were born there, or you were trying to avoid attention.

Galen Erso had not been born on Lah'mu.

They were coming for him, now, a good hundred yards out but marching steadily like a crawl of ants, a row of figures against the mud fields.  A line of black dots, with a solitary speck of white at their center.

That he might make a run for it never crossed the scientist's logical mind.  Even were he out of range of the shuttle's targeting systems or the soldiers' blasters, such a small craft was not a long-range vessel.  He had no doubt that a Star Destroyer of the Imperial Stellar Navy floated up there, somewhere above the slate gray clouds.  He had no realistic hope of escape.  Besides, his was not the only life he had to consider.

Without hurry, the man on the hill turned to step inside the mud hut before welcoming his familiar visitor one more time.

*** * ***

Galen had doubted he could hide forever, of course.  In his heart of hearts, he had known this day would come.  But just for a second, as his eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior and fell on the little girl crouched on the dirt floor with her doll, he wished it couldn't have just come _tomorrow._

"Jyn," he said with the soft authority his daughter knew not to ignore, thick with the accent of his homeworld.  

"Jyn," he said again, for no real reason other than to have his daughter's name slip past his lips one more time, "I need you to listen to me very carefully now, do you hear?"

She nodded solemnly.  "Yes, Papi."

Galen fought down the surge in his chest as he felt the smaller hand clasped in his.  Her free hand clutched the corn-husk doll she had been working on so intently, nimble fingers flying, humming some made-up lullaby to herself, the rudimentary figure going to join the pile sitting by the crackling fire, and he forced the words out past the tightness in his throat.  He had never been a good father, had left his daughter to her own devices while he puttered about with his grown-up toys, but if this was the last chance he was going to get to make an impression, he prayed it was a positive one.

"Jyn, everything I have done....I've done it to protect you."  As fatherly messages went, it felt pitifully inadequate, but he had never been good with words.   _At home with your gizmos and gadgets_ , his wife had chided him.  It was true enough, anyway.  Her gaze still held the barely-focused drifting attention of childhood, but that wasn't enough.  "Tell me you understand."

She blinked, as if startled by his sudden intensity.  She looked at him, seemed to really look at him, at his sharp cheekbones and graying hair and tired eyes.  

"I understand."

"You must not make a sound now, Jyn.  Be a good girl for your Papi."

*** * ***

They had an official designation as the most elite branch of the Imperial Stormtroopers, born to parents who were either members themselves or known to be unswervingly loyal to the Empire. Indoctrinated heavily and given the latest equipment, including experimental advanced weaponry, they were the elite of the elite, the Empire's fearsome vanguard, though they were the second smallest branch of the dreaded Department of Imperial Security, only ten thousand strong at any given time but individually said to be worth ten soldiers of the professional army.  Whether that was true, or Imperial boasting, he was not informed enough to say.

Tall, thin, the shortest of them over six feet tall and the tallest stretching seven, they looked fearsome and athletic, their sleek black armor gleaming with an ominous shine.  

The only other unmasked figure stood at their center in his white cloak and peaked cap.  His face was bare, but his dark eyes were as opaque and inscrutable as the helmets of his Death Troopers.

Galen was surprised to find he felt rather calm.  In a way, it was a relief that this day had finally come.  Knowing, to his logical mind, was always preferable to uncertainty.  So he gazed steadily into the cold eyes he had once thought a friend, and smiled in welcome.

 

*** * ***

 

Jyn strained her ears, but the rushing of the wind around the muddy hill was drowning out the soft words exchanged between Papi and this man who had come to see him.

Jyn did not like the other man.  He gave off a chill that had nothing to do with the evening wind at his back, blowing his cloak around him like a cape.  And when the dark soldiers stepped forward, she wanted to burst from the bushes and scream at them to let go of her Papi.  

But she had to be quiet, so very quiet and so still.  Not making a sound.  She had to be a good girl for Papi.

The scrabble of pebbles sounded deafeningly loud in her ear, but when she chanced a glance over the slope at the retreating figures, no one had turned around.

Above, the sky was turning dark.  Papi had shown her the stars to follow her way, but there were no stars tonight, and she was afraid. 

The dark soldiers were marching back toward their ship in the distance, as silent as they had come, a shackled figure in farmer's rags between two of them.

_Papi..._

_Be a good girl._

She was a good girl.  She didn't make a sound until she had scrambled down the backside of the hill and across the mud fields and into the woodlands, though chill was plunging her body temperature and slowing her limbs.  She tried to keep running, but her legs were moving through clinging resin.

She wasn't sure if she was going the right way, the way Papi had told her.  The woods closed in on her, dark and unpitying, and she was so cold.

The corn-husk doll was digging into her palm, but she clung to it as she stumbled through an endless starless night.  Just like she clung to the image of her Papi, being marched away like a criminal.

It was the image she took with her into darkness, when sleep finally found her that night.  It was the last time she would see him for a very long time.

  

 

 

 


End file.
